Mass and loss analysis of a space-type radiation cooled insulated DC transmission line

As both the power levels and transmission distances increase such as for large future nuclear power systems, the transmission line becomes an important element in the power chain between the source and load bus. Thus, the transmission line's characteristics must be determined so that the effect of these characteristics on the total power system can be assessed. These design characteristics include the specific mass, percent power loss, size, voltage and power levels, and operating temperatures of the conductor and insulating materials. In a previous paper, the dc transmission line's characteristics of a noninsulated solid cylindrical conductor were determined. In that analysis the expression derived for the transmission line's mass only included the conductor mass and the operating temperature of the line was that of the conductor. In the analysis of this paper, a single layer of insulation is added to the solid cylindrical conductor. In this analysis the dependency of the dc transmission line's mass, loss, and size on the power and voltage levels, conductor and insulation surface temperatures, transmission distance, and conductor and insulation material properties is determined. This analysis can be extended to multi-layers of insulation but the complexity of the analysis increases as the number of layers increase